


Goodbye Stranger

by messofthejess



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Breaking up is hard to do, F/M, I still love you, Self-Hatred, but letting go is even harder, the flask is a wedding gift, ugh I made Rick such a sap in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/pseuds/messofthejess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What was Grandma like?"</p>
<p>One simple question from Morty on a late-night drive through space sends Rick down memory lane, back to the night when he and his wife Leona said their final goodbyes.</p>
<p>Originally posted under the title "The Question."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Stranger

            I really want to hate her, but I can’t. She did everything right, and all I could do was fuck it up over and over. A hundred years of fucking up. My opportunity to live a quiet, domestic life with a wife and a daughter was shot to hell because I couldn’t keep my feet on the damn ground. Earth wasn’t enough. My eyes had been blown wide by the horror and wonder of the universe. You can’t un-see the kinds of things I’ve seen.

            Like Leona kneeling in front of me, her fingers curled around my flask. Her whispering that it was fine, fine, all fine, we didn’t have to keep things together for Beth because it wasn’t going to work anyway, not with the kind of life I wanted to lead. Her holding me…only Leona could touch me without thinking I was some kind of freak. She never treated me like I was different. She loved me for who I was, and it hurt. Jesus Christ, it hurt, because I knew I couldn’t give her what she wanted.

            She found me in the garage—where else?—slumped in a puddle of spilled liquor and self-loathing. The door opened, and she had a dinner plate in her hands, all made-up with the food I hadn’t bothered to come in and eat. Leona never gasped. She never dramatically dropped shit—working in a lab kinda beats that out of you. She just set the plate on my overcrowded workbench, wiped her fingers on her red, greasy kitchen apron, and knelt in front of me on the concrete floor, peering into my face.

            “Rick?” Leona asks. “What do you need?”

            It was never “What’s wrong?” or “How was your day?” She always asked what I needed. Which was maybe a little patronizing, but it got me to open my mouth. Someone offers something, I’ll take it without a second thought. I’m that big of an asshole.

            “I-I need,” I hiccup. “I need to go.”

            “Where do you need to go? You need to see your friends?”

            “No, no. I need to _go_. Leave. Never come back.”

            Leona tucks a piece of red hair behind her ear. She always kept it back in a bun for work, but she takes it down at home and let it spill out over her shoulders like a sunset. I liked to play with her hair in those rare moments when I was home and we had the place to ourselves. I would miss those times. I would miss _her…_

            “Why do you need to go?”

            “I can’t stay, Leona. Dammit, I’ve tried! I’ve tried this whole domestic thing, with being a husband and a father and the man who fixes shit around the house, and it just doesn’t work. That’s not who I am. That’s not who I can be.”

            She cocked her head, not like a forlorn puppy, but like a curious child. Beth would get the same look on her face when I came home from another dimension when she was younger; now she barely looks me in the eyes. Leona has never been scared to look me in the eyes. She’s bold. She dares me to push myself to my limits and keep moving forward. All she has to do is twitch an eyebrow, and I’m out here in the garage working on my inventions all over again. I want to make this a better galaxy, a better _universe_ , for her and for Beth.

            “I agree with you.”

            “W-what?” I stutter, part from the alcohol, part from surprise.

            “I agree: you need to go.”

            “But—”

            “Rick, you’re not happy here.” Tears start to well in Leona’s eyes, and she dabs them with a corner of her apron. “I can see that, anyone can. I’ve seen you try for over fifteen years, and it just doesn’t click. You smile because you think I can’t see your pain, but I always can.” She reaches for my hand, the one curled around my ever-present flask. “You’ve been drinking again.”

            “I’m always drinking,” I growl.

            “More than usual, Rick. This is more than slowing-your-brain-down boozing.” She taps the flask with a fingernail. “This is I’m-drinking-to-forget boozing. The only question is what you want to forget.”

            I want to forget I fucked up. I want to forget I ever put down roots, because digging them up again is going to kill me. I was an irresponsible fuckwit who dragged the woman I love and our daughter into this mess I call me. I also want to forget some of the shit I’ve seen across the galaxies—believe me, I’ve seen some messed-up shit. But mostly I want to forget my mistakes; forgiving myself isn’t an option.

            “I don’t want to forget you,” I mumble, and I start crying because I’m an absolute idiot. What are tears gonna do for me now? Tears can’t fix missed dinner dates and school plays, family weekends and God knows what other things _normal_ families do together. Beth is almost an adult now—there’s no recovering a lost childhood. And Leona…I don’t know why she’s stuck around. I don’t know why she hasn’t taken off and left me to come back to an empty house. That’s what _I_ would do. But I married someone better than myself. Leona is everything I wish I could be but can’t be.

            “Rick,” she sighs. “Oh, Rick.” And even though I must taste like snot and whiskey and tears and every other disgusting thing under the stars, Leona kisses me. She straddles my lap to get closer and grabs my shoulders, and she won’t let go. I kiss her, too, abandoning my flask and wrapping my arms around her back. We sit together on the cold garage floor, kissing like we’re teenagers saying goodbye until we see each other at school on Monday. This _is_ goodbye, but it’s much more permanent. I can feel her heart thudding under her thin T-shirt, and mine thudding through my stained lab coat.

            It’s not that I don’t love her. Very much the opposite. But this wasn’t how we were meant to be. Leona wasn’t destined to be a waiting wife, working during the day at the university biotech lab and gazing up at the stars for her husband at night. Beth deserves someone better than an absentee father. And I…well, I don’t believe I’m destined for or deserve anything. The universe deals out its shit, and you have to make the most of it. Me, I was dealt a genius intelligence and a hell-raising streak several light-years long. It’d be criminal to leave those go to waste.

            “You should say goodbye to Beth if you do go,” Leona says after we break apart.

            “I doubt she gives a fuck.”

            “Rick! You’re her father.”

            “Yeah, and her stupid boyfriend is probably the one she calls ‘daddy’ now.” Leona gags, and I can’t help but smirk.

            “That’s just disgusting!” she manages to sputter.

            “So is he. What the hell is his name? J-Jacob…Jambalaya…Jericho—”

            “Jerry.”

            “Oh my God, I want to knee him in the balls.”

            Leona bursts out laughing. “Why?”

            “C’mon, Leona. _Jerry_? That’s a name that just invites you to introduce your knee to his pube-covered ballsack. He has practically no hope of being anything other than a piss stain on the carpet of society because he has such a shitty name.”

            “Jesus, Rick!” Leona punches me lightly in the shoulder. “That’s our daughter’s _boyfriend_.”

            “What? It’s not like he’s going to knock Beth up, drag her down to a life of mediocrity and teenage motherhood, and never encourage her to pursue better things because he knows the second he does Beth is out the door, _riiiight?_ ”

            A cloud over Leona’s entire demeanor just then. Her eyes narrow, and the color drains from her brown cheeks. “Should that _ever_ come to pass, I swear to God I will find whatever fucked-up planet you landed on, hunt you down, and kill you.”

            “Not if I kill myself first, babe.”

            The dark humor isn’t lost on her. Leona scowls, but she pats my face anyway. “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to do great things out there, and you won’t kill yourself along the way unless by some horrible accident. Now let’s get up off the floor, my knees are killing me.”

            We stand up, but neither one of us dares to move away from the other. If we’re going our separate ways, it’s not really a separation. We aren’t screaming at one another, there’s no cheating or lying or lack of intimacy. It’s an understanding that we just aren’t meant to be. Not like this, anyway. That’s why I said I want to hate her: it would make this so much easier.

            “Leona,” I say, grabbing her hand. “I, uh—divorce…?”

            She fills in my question with an answer. “I’ll take care of it, Rick. I’ll file it as fault, say there was abandonment.” I wince at that word—how can she say it so casually? “Not sure what to do with the house…”

            “Keep it. Keep all my shit, your shit, Beth’s shit. I don’t really need much where I’m going.”

            “Fair enough.”

            I take her other hand and squeeze. This is hard. This is so fucking hard. “Leona. I’m a man of science. I know I’m supposed to be some cold, calculating bastard that flips the bird at God and love and all the other things that make everyday people feel comfortable. But I want you to know that I’m not leaving because I’m dissatisfied. You…” Damn it, I was gonna start crying again, wasn’t I? “I meant every word I said when we got married. I know I’m taking off now like a complete asshole, but I still love you. Okay? I still love you. ‘Til death do we part and-and everything. No divorce is ever gonna change that. It’s just a convenience thing, y’know, Leona?”

            Leona smiles at me. Not up at me—we’re damn near the same height, she’s a tall woman. We’ve always been able to look each other in the eyes, even when we’re crying and falling apart. It’s the saddest damn smile I’ve ever seen, but also the most sincere.

            “I know, Rick. I still love you, too. I always will.”

XXX

            “What was Grandma like?”

            Morty is still waiting for an answer to the question I left hanging a good ten minutes ago. We’re cruising through the stars because he couldn’t sleep tonight and I practically never do. But of course, being the little teenage twerp he is, he gets all _deep_ at night and starts asking questions.

            I look down at the flask in my hand. I can still make out the engraving on the bottom: _To Rick, on our Wedding Day with Everlasting Love, From Leona._ How do I answer his question? I don’t think he’s old enough to understand break-ups aren’t always devastating. Hell, he hasn’t even managed to get with that Jessica girl he’s been pining over for two years. H-how the hell could he understand the end if he’s never seen the beginning?

            I swig from my flask and decide to go for honesty. Not because it’s the easy way out for once, but because it’s the best way out.

            “She was a hell of a woman, Morty,” I say. And that’s the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> I've read fanfics where Rick's wife is described as emotionally abusive, not understanding of his work, or just plain a bitch. But I like to think Rick's wife was someone who understood her husband very well, and that's why it took such a toll on Rick to leave his family. The hardest break-ups are when you still love someone, but just can't keep it together anymore. 
> 
> Title is taken from the 1979 Supertramp song of the same name.
> 
> _Goodbye stranger, it's been nice_  
>  Hope you find your paradise  
> Tried to see your point of view  
> Hope your dreams will all come true... 


End file.
